What You Should Know About Rottweiler’s Scissor Bites
If you’ve read our article on puppy biting and teething, you’ve surely taken interest in the way your Rottweiler puppy’s teeth is developing.
Once they get their full set of adult teeth, Rottweilers should end up with a dentition structure called the scissor bite. Having a proper scissor bite will not only allow your Rottweiler to meet its breed standard and be accepted into dog shows, it will also be useful for your pet’s day to day life.
What exactly is a scissor bite?
You can determine if your dog has a proper scissor bite by looking at its upper and lower incisor and canine teeth. Incisors are the front teeth of a dog which they use primarily for cutting their food. A normal dog should have about six upper incisors and six lower incisors. Meanwhile, canine teeth are the fang-like teeth found right next to the upper and lower incisors which dogs use for tearing their food. Every dog should have four canines (two lower and two upper).
A proper scissor bite is formed when your dog’s upper incisors fall in front of the lower incisors and meet in a saw-tooth formation while the upper and lower canine intersect in a smooth curve.
Rottweiler Standard Dentition
As you may already know, the American Kennel Club (AKC) in the United States and the World Canine Organization has a set of strict breed standards which your Rottweiler needs to adhere to especially if you plan on signing them up to join dog shows and competitions.
While the AKC doesn’t really specify what defects in dentition would disqualify a Rottweiler, the World Canine Organization posits that a proper Rottweiler dog should have a complete set of 42 teeth that meets in a scissor bite and with ‘the upper incisors closely overlapping the lower incisors’.
Having either an overshot or undershot will immediately disqualify a dog. Something as simple as one missing tooth will also prevent a Rottweiler from qualifying.
The importance of a proper bite
Then again, the importance of your dog having a proper scissor bite doesn’t just end in its opportunity in joining dog shows.
According to veterinarians, dogs with serious malocclusion will have great trouble doing day to day things like grabbing things with their mouths, closing their mouths and even eating. A malocclusion is any aberration from a proper scissor bite.
From puppy teeth to a scissor bite
You can watch out for malocclusion in your dog’s teeth even while they’re still developing. A puppy’s jaw will continue growing and changing until it’s nine to twelve months old. During this time period, you can observe your puppy’s teeth and take them to the vet when you notice any serious deviations, so they can officially diagnose any malocclusion and correct them early on if possible.
Just to be clear your puppy may not come home with a perfect bite. More often than not they have an overbite. All this means is that your puppy’s lower jaw needs more time to grow. This normally corrects itself between 9 to 12 months of age.
Since the bite is very important in the show world if the puppy’s bite is off at the time they go home most breeders will label them as pet quality. Your puppy is perfectly healthy they just need more time to develop properly. If you are worried about the bite of your puppy at an early age you should make your breeder aware and be willing to pay for their show / breeding quality puppy.
Your breeder should know their lines better than anyone else and be able to tell you what to expect. Some puppies going home with too tight of a bite could go offer later on. We recommend a loose bite for our show quality puppies and no more than 3/16” for our pet quality puppies when they go home.
We have found through our years of breeding our lines this rule of thumb gives our clients the best possible bite based on the purpose of their Rottweiler as an adult.
Scissor bites and Rottweiler breeding
Malocclusion are genetic in nature. Thus, Rottweiler breeders should only breed dogs with proper scissor bites. Meanwhile, Rottweilers with malocclusions can still be sold but with the catch that they should be neutered to prevent the improper bite in their genes to spread out to their offspring.
Having a proper scissor bite not only qualifies your Rottweiler to join dog shows and adhere to the strict breed standards, it also allows your dog to do normal things such eating and grabbing things properly. So if you have worries about the way your dog’s teeth are developing, it might be high time for you to check your Rottweiler puppy’s mouth and see if they have a proper scissor bite.
